Tampa, FL – On Wednesday, October 10, at around 8:30 p.m., Milton hit about 40 miles south of Tampa Bay as a category three hurricane. Not even two weeks after Hurricane Helene, Milton's damage has been staggering.

Before hurricane Milton hit, demand for gasoline in Tampa had already emptied many stations. Days later, gas is hard to obtain, with 77% of gas stations without fuel as of Friday. The few gas stations with supplies have hour-long lines guarded by state troopers.

“The line was so long it literally wrapped around the street a couple blocks down. People were legitimately fighting for gas, it was scary,” said Valentina Beron, a Tampa resident who waited in line for gas.

Wednesday night the power outages also began in the Bay area. At its peak, 2.5 million households lost electricity. Since Friday, over 200,000 homes have had service restored, but it is unknown how long millions more will have to wait.

Hurricane Milton will also affect Florida's insurance market. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew led to a series of booms and busts that pushed out many insurers from the state. One of the few remaining is Citizens Property Insurance, which covers 1.2 million policies. 20% of these policies are in Bay area counties.

While Citizens says it has enough funds to pay out all claims, the question is how many of its homeowners will have their claims approved and for what amount. During Hurricane Ian in 2022, independent research found almost half of all insurance claims were outright denied. Even approved claims can be adjusted to a smaller payout than requested.

If companies like Citizens deny a claim, there is not much a Florida homeowner can do, thanks to Governor Ron DeSantis. The only option is to sue, but in 2022, DeSantis reduced the time for filing a claim and made it so policyholders would have to sue out of pocket regardless of the case outcome. Coincidentally, DeSantis' political committee accepted millions in donations from insurance industry professionals.

The reactions to Hurricane Milton paint an alarming picture of Florida's future. Necessities like gas, power and homes can easily become unavailable.

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